1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic circuit design, and more particularly, to a method for verifying that portions of a previous electronic design are reused in a new electronic design.
2. The Prior Arts
With the rapid development of semiconductor technology and electronic circuit design techniques, a number of different and complex printed circuit boards (PCBs) have been designed in industry. PCBs include the placement of electronic components, such as resistors, capacitors, transistors and the metallic interconnect of these components laminated onto a non-conductive substrate, via conductive traces, pads and other features.
In response to the complex electronic circuit design and the design time requirement, Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software and Electrical Computer Aided Design (ECAD) software are widely used in the design, testing and verification of PCBs.
Each of the components includes a unique reference designator (such as U1, R1, C27, etc.) in the circuit design. Each of the components can be logically represented as a graphic symbol that shows the component, together with its pins. In addition, each pin may have a unique alphanumeric designation as well as a use description. The circuit designer may logically connect the pins of the various components to form electrical nets performing dedicated functions such as sending data bits, comparing two bits of data, a voltage amplifier etc. Each of the electrical nets performing such a function is known as a circuit. A number of circuits are connected together to form an electronic design. The connection between the components of electronic circuits along with their pins can be represented as a text file that may be exported from the EDA software and the ECAD software.
Each component has a manufacturer's part number. Companies that use these components in their PCB designs typically assign their own company part number to each component. The same components provided by different manufacturers often have the same form, fit and function, such that they will have the same company part number. Therefore, the same circuit design may use different manufacturers' parts for the same component number. Also, the company part numbers and pin numbers are included in their EDA software and ECAD software.
When creating a new electronic design, circuit designers typically reuse portions of previous electronic designs as those circuits may function correctly in the relevant applications. Additionally, only a small portion of the previous electronic design is often changed to create the new electronic design.
However, it is necessary to ensure that the new electronic design performs correctly while the reused portion of the previous electronic design is copied exactly to the new electronic design. Manually checking that the reused portion of the previous electronic design has been correctly copied is laborious, and will often miss errors.
For the sake of meeting the requirements of reducing design errors and shortening the development time of a new electronic designs, it is necessary to provide a method of automating the comparison between the previous electronic design and the new electronic design.